“I will cheerfully submit to all your requirements, sir, up to two o'clock this afternoon, and will resume them after three, but cannot be confined to the house during that intermediate hour.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Because I have entered the Baptist communion, and by appointment am to be baptised in the river at that hour.”
“Oh, insanity!—it cannot be allowed!”
Angelo answered with placid firmness:
“Nothing shall prevent it, if I am alive.”
“Why, consider, my dear sir, in your condition it might prove fatal.”
A tender and ecstatic smile beamed from Angelo's eyes, and he broke forth in a tone of joyous fervency:
“Ah, how blessed it would be to die for such a cause—it would be martyrdom!”
“But your brother—consider your brother; you would be risking his life, too.”